


Cucumber Water

by for_autumn_i_am



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Earth, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, M/M, Mutual Pining, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2017-11-12
Packaged: 2019-02-01 09:29:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12702084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/for_autumn_i_am/pseuds/for_autumn_i_am
Summary: All Thor ever wanted was a normal, quiet life. All Loki ever wanted was Thor.





	Cucumber Water

The wood snaps with the sound of breaking bones as the fire roars to life. Thor tosses dry grass over the stake with a pitchfork and then wipes the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. It’s a remarkably hot day and the air is humid; mist rolls off the hills surrounding his little farm, mixing with the smoke of the bonfire. He’s wearing jeans and flipflops, his hair tied into a bun; he wishes he could’ve stayed in briefs the whole day, rolling around in his cold bed, but work needs to be done.

Labour helps keep his mind off things. Purchasing this farm cost him a fiancée — Jane had returned to the USA, fed up of being a farmer’s girlfriend in the middle of nowhere pretty fast. Now it was just him and nature; they were always on good terms, at least. Stryn, Norway. Far away from home. Far away from everybody.  

He closes his eyes for a second, his mind still sparkling with the brilliant blue of the lake stretching over the horizon. Slowly, he exhales. 

“Tired already?” a voice calls. 

Thor’s head shoots up. 

“You’ve barely started,” Loki goes on. His smirking figure emerges from the shadow of the verandah; hazy like a mirage, the smoke distorts his features. Thor reaches out for him without thinking. He needs to touch him, needs to test if he’s really here, but the distance is too big between them. “Missed me?” Loki asks and drops his suitcase; it’s worn leather and Thor hates it with a passion. 

Four steps; three, two, one: Loki is standing in front of him, opening his arms. Thor mirrors him, but then they’re just standing there, and within a few seconds it becomes painfully obvious that they won’t embrace each other, not this time, not ever again. Thor awkwardly pats Loki’s shoulder, half-apologetic. His thumb brushes Loki’s neck on accident: his skin is cold and dry, like his smile. 

“How long have you been lurking there?” Thor asks and instantly realises that this is not what he should say now, but he can’t take it back. He bites his lips.

Loki pushes his sunglasses up his forehead and, staring into the fire, murmurs, “A while.” 

“Uh-huh. So huh, what’s up? Have you been— Where have you been this time?” He indicates Loki’s abandoned suitcase. Loki doesn’t pay him any mind. He kicks the bricks of the fire pit experimentally. Thor wants to tell him to be careful, but knows better. “You always liked travelling,” he goes on, babbling. 

“I never liked travelling,” Loki interrupts. “But I do travel a lot.” 

“Yeah, that’s—” 

“I was in Serbia.” 

“Did you have fun?” 

“I had fun.” 

“That’s good. Good to hear. So you’re doing okay, then?”

“Yeah. Nice house.” 

“You like it? Thanks. Pretty cool, right?” He winks at him, friendly. Loki is still staring into the fire, and something flashes in his eyes that Thor doesn’t like at all. “How long are you staying in Norway?”

“Just passing by.” 

It’s a relief to hear, but it still hurts. Loki was barely thirteen when he ran away from home, and he’s been running ever since. 

“You could stay,” Thor says. He sounds so damn desperate and he doesn’t even understand why he’s suddenly like this. “I have a guestroom and all that. You could stay a few days or something. I mean, look around, at the scenery.” 

Loki doesn’t look at the scenery. “No thanks,” he says. “Nice of you to offer.” 

Thor considers that bringing up the guestroom might have been a mistake. It’s like banishing Loki to the couch before he’d even tried to jump into Thor’s bed; the idea that he’d try something at all is presumptuous in any case. The last time they were, well, intimate, it was some sloppy handjob after Christmas dinner by the table. Dad had gone to bed—it was just the two of them and far too much mulled wine. They were back in the old family home, and jerking off each other felt so much like sacrilege, even though both of them were adults, both of them knew the truth, had been knowing for years, had been doing this for years, assumed no blood-relation meant no shame. When they were finished Thor wiped his hand on the tablecloth and suggested they stop doing this. Things were starting to get serious with Jane. That was years ago. 

“It’s hot,” Loki says. “I’ve almost forgot how it gets like this. White summer nights. Midnight sun. I mostly remember the snow. Fucking snow in March.”

_Fucking in the snow in March,_ Thor’s mind supplies, then, _Enough, enough_.  

“Yeah, the summer is hot,” he says dumbly. “You want a drink?”

“Some water would be nice, thanks.” 

“I made cucumber water,” he says, and he’s relieved to see a fond smile playing on Loki’s thin lips. 

“You made cucumber water.” 

“Just how you showed me,” Thor says, almost bragging, and steps closer to him. “When you came back from Jamaica. Remember? I always add mint and a hint of salt. No strawberry bullshit.” 

“No strawberry bullshit,” Loki repeats, almost coyly, and nudges him with a sharp elbow. This is the Loki that Thor remembers. One sentence was enough to destroy that tentative, secret connection they had, and ever since then Thor’s been wondering whether there’s something else he could say—something that could repair the damage, a spell to get his brother back even if he couldn’t have his lover back. Maybe pronouncing the right words in the right order at the right time could make Loki stay, would make Loki be Loki again, not this stranger with hollow, hungry eyes, alarmingly pale and hardly real. 

“Cucumber water coming right up.”

“It better be the top-shelf stuff,” Loki says with a grin. His teeth are like icicles. 

Thor goes through the chilly rooms of his home, gets to the kitchen, opens the red fridge. He grabs the dewy pitcher, sniffs at it: it smells amazing, fresh and sweet. He gets two beer mugs and starts pouring out the cucumber water. 

When Loki got home from Jamaica with a broken nose and specks of blood all over his Sins of Thy Beloved shirt, he dropped his suitcase, sat down on it, and said, “Hey, I learnt something cool.” And then he started telling him about the right way to make cucumber water in mind-numbing detail, torturously slow, while Thor felt sick with worry. He was choking on questions like “What happened?” and “Who hurt you?” and “Are you all right, will you ever be?” while Loki went on and on, “Forget strawberries, we’re making cucumber water, not lemonade, so no lime or pineapples either…” 

Thor grabs the straws from the cabinet when he realises that something is horribly wrong. He smells smoke, nothing but smoke, and there’s a sound like bones breaking.  He stands still for a second, listening, breathing, before he starts running as fast as he can. 

The rooms of his dream house are painted orange and red by the flames. The windows of the living room explode. He runs through raining glass. The garden is ablaze: the freshly cut grass, the oak tree, the deck chairs, the shed. Thor throws the pitcher of cucumber water at the fire as the flames reach for him and calls for Loki, shouting his name until he gags on it,  _ Loki, Loki, logi _ — fire. 

He looks around frantically; all he can see is hell. For a moment, he catches sight of a black shadow, a puny figure of a human, and then it’s gone in a flicker. He drops to his knees. 

**Author's Note:**

>  _Logi_ means fire in Norwegian. It’s debated whether Loki was not only the god of mischief but of fire as well.
> 
> Thanks to bioticnerfherder for the beta reading!


End file.
